The Trenton Horsman Doll Factory

 

You’ve got to move when the chance is right. That’s something I keep telling myself—but just as often, I forget it. Or ignore it. And then I end up learning the same lesson all over again.

It happened on a quiet afternoon when I pulled up to the old Horsman Doll factory. The place has long been abandoned, but it still holds stories—ones I try to capture through my lens. The main gate was slightly ajar. Not wide open, but just enough for me to slip through with my gear. It was one of those rare opportunities.

But across the street, half-hidden behind a rundown house, a group of men sat drinking and shouting over each other. The kind of scene you don't want to get caught up in—especially alone, carrying expensive camera equipment.

I hesitated. I debated. I bailed.

My gut told me to walk away, so I did.

I figured I could find another way in. I circled the block, hoping for a back entrance or even a broken window low enough to climb through. I found one window that looked possible—but it would have taken some serious effort, and probably left me with a few bruises. It didn’t feel like the right move either.

So I left. I headed off to another spot, telling myself I’d come back.

The next week, I did come back. And that gate? The one that was cracked open just wide enough?

Now it had a brand new, shiny chain wrapped around it. Padlocked tight. No way in.

And just like that, the window closed.

It’s a simple truth I keep learning the hard way: sometimes you only get one shot. Whether it feels perfect or not, whether someone’s watching or not, sometimes you just have to go for it.

The bottom of the fence wasn’t wide enough to squeeze my camera bag through—not without risking damage—so I passed again. Circled the block. Same routine. Still hoping for something better.

And wouldn’t you know it—just a week later, someone else had already made their move.

This time, I found two new openings. One was a metal gate someone had partially rolled up, just high enough for me to duck under. No hesitation. I slipped through and found myself inside before anyone even noticed.

The space was dim and quiet, with just enough light filtering through to make out the shapes of old floorboards and dark corners. As I stood there soaking it all in, I heard the quick patter of something above me—a squirrel, clearly not expecting company. We both froze for a moment, equally surprised.

Then I got to work. Camera out. Lens on. I moved carefully, documenting the wide-open floor and its decaying corners. It felt good to finally be in.

But I had one goal: getting to the other side of the building. That’s where the real story was. I followed a hallway that looked like it should lead there—it was bricked off. Solid. No getting through.

I wasn’t ready to give up just yet. I climbed upstairs to see if maybe one of the upper levels offered a way across. But as I explored floor after floor, the same thing kept happening: half the floor was either missing or collapsed completely. Big gaps in the center. Weak edges. Unpredictable footing.

I stood there, staring across at a door on the far end of one floor, wondering if it was worth the risk. Maybe it led somewhere. Maybe it didn’t. Either way, I’d be gambling with a nasty fall—and possibly worse.

It wasn’t worth it. Not that day.

So I left. Frustrated. Annoyed. Not because the building beat me but because I had come so close. Again.

Just as I was rounding the corner to head back to my car, I spotted it the second new entrance.

Someone had pried a board off the outer wall and knocked out a crawl space big enough for a person to squeeze through. It was rough, but it was definitely human-made. And in that moment, I felt a strange kind of vindication—like the building still wanted to let someone in.

I paused. Watched the street for foot traffic. Waited for a break. Then crouched down to peek through the gap. On the other side, I could see a push-bar door. It looked promising, but there was no way to tell if it was locked.

I weighed it. Quick math in my head: 80/20 against me. It was probably locked. Most of them are.

I stood there for a moment, tempted, and then kept walking. Another almost. Another pass.

Weeks went by before I had the time to return. And when I did, the change hit me like a punch.

The building, my building, was now fenced off. Completely.

Wood panel fencing all around. Green privacy netting covering every inch. The entire block-long property was sealed tight, and a fresh sign announced what I already feared: demolition was underway.

Through a crack in the fence, I could see the timeline. Between October 17th and 18th, they’d started locking it all down. I had missed my shot by just one week.

I scanned the new perimeter. Found a gap in the fencing, but once again, it wasn’t wide enough to get my camera bag through. Same story, different day.

This time, though, I wasn’t leaving empty-handed. I decided I’d ditch the gear, switch to video, and document the rest of the place with my phone. It wasn’t ideal, but it was something.

I set up near the spot I planned to slip through. But just as I was getting into position, neighbors started pulling in from work, parking right across from me, watching, waiting, unknowingly killing my shot.

Even if I made it through unnoticed, I’d still have to circle the complex, racing daylight. I had maybe an hour and a half left, and the sun was dropping fast.

So once again, I walked back to my car, frustrated and empty-handed. Looking for something else nearby to chase. Another door. Another story.

Locals call it the Doll House, but once upon a time, the Horsman Doll Factory was a titan of American manufacturing.

Built-in the early 1930s, this sprawling brick complex in the heart of a residential neighborhood was the beating heart of the Horsman empire—makers of some of the most popular dolls in the country. At its peak, the factory employed over 800 workers, many of whom lived just blocks away. People didn’t commute in those days. They walked. They punched in and out where they lived.

Among its biggest hits were dolls that “drank” and cried—best-sellers like the Thirsty Walker and Crybaby. But by the 1960s, the lights in the factory started going dim. Doll production stopped, and over time, the once-busy complex became a patchwork of smaller businesses: coat makers, upholsterers, and drapery shops. Even a factory outlet store for leather coats moved in.

But none of it lasted. By the early 2000s, the buildings had been completely vacant for roughly a decade. A fire in 2012, likely arson, only scorched a small section, but by then, the decay had already taken root.

Developers came and went with promises—townhomes, high-end lofts, revitalization. Nothing ever got off the ground.

Now, surrounded by fencing and slowly preparing for demolition, the old Doll House stands as a final relic. A hollowed-out memory of a time when entire neighborhoods were built around a single building.

Before the factory, before the fences, before the fire—there was Edward Imeson Horsman.

In 1865, just after the Civil War, Horsman founded E.I. Horsman Co. in New York City. What began as a small operation crafting handmade baseballs and selling croquet and archery sets quickly evolved into something much bigger. By the 1870s, Horsman was importing toys and novelty goods from Germany, including dolls. Soon after, he started making his own.

And not just any dolls—realistic ones.

Horsman was one of the first American toymakers to give dolls expressive, lifelike faces that kids could relate to. In 1893, he introduced the Babyland Rag, a cloth-bodied doll that became a major hit. Unlike fragile porcelain dolls from Europe, Horsman’s dolls were built to last—and to play with.

That’s where composition came in. This new material, a mix of glue, glycerin, zinc oxide, and wood shavings, was durable, moldable, and cheaper to produce. Horsman marketed them with a simple promise: “Can’t break ‘em.”

The material was originally developed by Solomon Hoffman and manufactured by Aetna, but Horsman quickly struck a deal to secure exclusive distribution rights. The move paid off. The company boomed, launching a decade of invention and growth.

Its showroom at 200 Fifth Avenue in Manhattan—right in the toy district of Maiden Lane—became a dreamland for children. Holidays and birthdays across America featured dolls that started there.

Edward Horsman passed away in 1927 and was laid to rest in Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. But his company carried on, shifting from New York City to that now-silent brick complex known as the Doll House—once the largest doll factory in the country.

It was more than a factory. It was the centerpiece of a neighborhood. And like the man who started it all, it helped shape the childhoods of generations.

By the 1910s, the E.I. Horsman Co. had become a serious force in the toy industry—and it wasn’t just because of their dolls. It was because they were always evolving.

Horsman began working with sculptors like Helen Fox Trowbridge and Bernard Lipfert to design new doll faces and forms. Their early creations still had cloth or plush bodies, but a major shift came with the invention of a lighter, cheaper wood-fiber-based composition material. In early 1918, Horsman released its first all-composition doll, a breakthrough that made the dolls sturdier and more affordable than ever before.

But that same year, the company suffered a major loss. E.I. Horsman Jr. died suddenly of a heart attack. His father, then in his 70s, stepped back in to lead the company with help from a handful of longtime employees.

By 1919, Horsman had merged with Aetna to form the E.I. Horsman and Aetna Doll Company. The new partnership focused entirely on doll manufacturing, but the name didn’t last long. By 1922, they dropped the Aetna name altogether.

The 1920s brought legal trouble. Horsman found itself in a string of lawsuits aimed at protecting its copyrighted doll designs. Even Bernard Lipfert—once a close collaborator—was sued after he began freelancing for competitors. The company won that case, but shortly after, founder Edward I. Horsman Sr. passed away in 1927 at the age of 83. Within months, two of his top executives followed.

The leadership void left the company reeling.

Still, in 1930, Horsman acquired a major competitor, Louis Amberg & Son, in a move that momentarily boosted its fortunes. But the timing couldn’t have been worse—the Great Depression was just settling in. Sales declined. Costs rose. Horsman, like so many businesses of the time, struggled to stay afloat.

In 1933, the Regal Doll Manufacturing Company stepped in and acquired Horsman. For a few years, dolls were sold under both names, but by 1940, the company was officially rebranded as Horsman Dolls, Inc., and the Regal name was retired.

Through the 1930s and into the early ‘40s, the company focused on mid-priced baby dolls. These weren’t boutique shelf pieces—they were working-class toys, sold through mail-order giants like Sears and Montgomery Ward and shipped to homes across the country.

And though times were tough, Horsman dolls kept arriving in boxes marked “fragile” but meant to be played with—held, dragged around, and loved.

After World War II, the Horsman Doll Company wasn’t just back in business—it was evolving fast.

During the war years, Horsman had started experimenting with plastics. By the late 1940s, they scored a hit with a new version of the Campbell Kids, but the bigger story was what came next: the move from composition dolls to hard plastic and eventually soft vinyl. Within a few short years, the once-revolutionary composition material was gone.

At its peak in the 1940s and ‘50s, the Trenton, New Jersey factory was producing up to 12,000 dolls a day during the busy back-to-school season. Horsman’s plant was unusual because it did everything under one roof—making the bodies, sewing the outfits, and even building the boxes. Women worked the sewing machines. Men handled the blades to cut fabric. It was an assembly line of American childhood.

With wartime restrictions on materials, Horsman had grown especially skilled at using vinyl. While they weren’t the first to make plastic dolls, they stood out for how well they used it. In the 1950s, they introduced soft vinyl heads that allowed for rooted hair instead of wigs—another small revolution in doll-making.

The postwar boom kept the factory buzzing. But by the end of the ‘50s, cracks were starting to show. Rising labor costs in New Jersey made it harder for Horsman to compete. In 1960, the company moved operations south to Columbia, South Carolina, where production picked up again. Still, competition from overseas manufacturers was closing in.

In 1953, Horsman had already been sold to Botany Mills, Inc. to stay afloat. Then in the 1960s and ‘70s, the Lipson family took over the brand, continuing the company’s focus on affordable, quality dolls. By 1981, Drew Industries acquired Horsman and began shifting more production overseas in a bid to stay competitive.

It worked for a time. But by 1986, the South Carolina plant shut down for good.

The Horsman name was eventually sold to Gata Box Ltd., a Hong Kong-based company that continued producing dolls for collectors and kids alike until 1999. After Gata Box folded, a new company—Horsman Ltd.—revived the name and introduced a line of jointed fashion dolls made in China aimed at collectors.

Back in 1950, the very last composition doll, Bright Star, rolled off the line. Since then, Horsman’s legacy has ridden the waves of plastic, vinyl, and changing times.

From handmade baseballs and croquet sets to 12,000 dolls a day, from Fifth Avenue showrooms to shuttered Southern factories, the Horsman name has endured. Faded, maybe. But still remember—in childhood memories, in dusty attics, and the silent halls of the old Doll House waiting for the wrecking ball.

Source(s):

1. Hatala, G. (n.d.). Vintage photos of toys and games from N.J. NJ.com.

2. Zdan, A. (2012, January 12). Arson suspected in fire at former Trenton doll factory. NJ.com

3. Wood, Marian. (2014, August 27). Workday Wednesday: Horsman Dolls and the Roth Connection. Climbing My Family Tree.

4. Lauro, J. (2021, December 10). Some of America’s Favorite Toy Brands Originated in New Jersey. New Jersey Monthly.

5. The Bold Doll. (n.d.). Rini raids the archives. The Bold Doll. Retrieved April 2, 2025, from https://thebolddoll.com/modern/rini-raids-the-archives/

6. Bouchard, Z. (n.d.). Horsman Dolls - Guide to Value, Marks, History. WorthPoint. Retrieved April 2, 2025, from https://www.worthpoint.com/dictionary/p/toys-dolls-games-puzzles/dolls-manufacturers/horsman-dolls

7. Richman, S. M. (2014). Reconsidering Trenton: The small city in the post-industrial age. McFarland, Incorporated, Publishers. pp. 122–125.

8. Moyer, P. (2001). Doll Values: Antique to Modern. United States: Collector Books. pp. 266

9. Coleman, E. A. (1963). Dolls: Makers and Marks. United States: Dorothy S. Coleman. pp. 33

10. Playthings. (1928). United States: Geyer-McAllister Publications. pp. 445

11. St. Nicholas. (1918). United Kingdom: Scribner & Company.

12. Good Housekeeping. (1928). United States: International Magazine Company. pp. 198

13. Geyer's Stationer: Devoted to the Interests of the Stationery, Fancy Goods and Notion Trades. (1902). United States: (n.p.). pp. 18.

14. The Cornellian. (1907). United States: Secret Societies of Cornell University. pp. 26